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Densely or laxly tufted perennial, up to 1 m tall; culm nodes with a collar of stiff hairs. Leaves mainly basal, linear, rolled; ligule a fringe of hairs. Inflorescence an open or contracted panicle. Spikelets 6.2-15 mm long (excluding awns), often purple at base, 1-flowered; glumes obtuse to truncate; lemma 3-awned, only central awn plumose; articulation about middle of lemma.
Lemma shorter than the glumes, cylindric, smooth, articulated near the middle; callus 1.5-2.5 mm. long, very acute, long-hairy; column 10-13 mm. long, straight or slightly twisted, filiform; central awn up to 4.5 cm. long, plumose, more or less naked in the lower 1/4, with a short naked exserted apex; the lateral awns 1.5-2 cm. long, very fine, mostly erect, scaberulous.
Densely or laxly tufted perennial to 1 m, culm nodes with collar of stiff hairs. Leaves mainly basal, linear, rolled. Spikelets 6.2-15.0 mm long in an open or contracted panicle, central awn plumose, spikelet callus pungent.
Leaf-laminae variable in length, convolute, nearly setaceous to pungent, more or less recurved, scabrous or minutely pubescent or hirtellous above, glabrous and smooth or sparsely pilose beneath.
Panicle up to 30 cm. long, usually narrowly contracted but often open and sometimes lax, with a nearly glabrous axis, and with erect, appressed, solitary or usually 2-nate branches.
Leaf-sheaths crowded at the base, striate, whitish, glabrous or more or less woolly along the margins, sometimes densely villose, the upper ones tight.
Glumes nearly equal, 3-nerved, usually glabrous, obtuse or subacute, subcoriaceous; the inferior 8.5-11 mm. long, the superior 9-12 mm. long.
Culms erect or geniculately ascending, simple, mostly branched at the base, glabrous, 2-3-noded; nodes barbate (with long spreading hairs).
Awn disarticulating by a break in the body of the lemma itself, the central limb plumose in the upper half and up to 45 mm. long.
Ligule a short-ciliate rim; auricles short-ciliate, those of innovations long-barbate; collar glabrous.
Spikelets linear-oblong, pallid or straw-coloured, often with purple spot at the base.
Perennial up to 85 cm. high, densely or laxly caespitose.
